What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[turbo]

Never even been to Hawaii, though I'd be very interested in visiting volcanoes. Too bad we don't have any in Maine.

 

[baywax]

Never even been to Hawaii, though I'd be very interested in visiting volcanoes. Too bad we don't have any in Maine.

Koko Crater is dormant for the time being. Koko means blood so it may have been related to some kind of rituals or just extremely red lava.

Yeah, I guess Maine is on the Canadian Shield... or parts there south... and really quite quiet when it comes to volcanic activity.

I heard Mt. St. Helens blow her stack when it did. I've got Mt. Baker in my back yard (72 miles away) and that might be a major eruption. Can you say Pompei?! Can I say no highway, rail or planes for some time? It was always considered extinct but that's been upgraded to dormant because there's a steam vent on the south ridge.

 

[turbo]

If Mt. Baker becomes active, let us know. We need to sacrifice the "funniest member" award winner.

 

[Astronuc]

If Mt. Baker becomes active, let us know. We need to sacrifice the "funniest member" award winner.

I'll bring the drums, beer and BBQ.

 

[turbo]

I'll bring the drums, beer and BBQ.

Great! All we need is grizzly-bear type dart gun to take you down so we can toss you in. BTW, Molson Golden is OK, but if you can bring Beck's, I'll try to convince the tossers not to let you bounce of rock outcroppings on the way in.

 

[baywax]

Great! All we need is grizzly-bear type dart gun to take you down so we can toss you in. BTW, Molson Golden is OK, but if you can bring Beck's, I'll try to convince the tossers not to let you bounce of rock outcroppings on the way in.

So, I guess this means I didn't win... damn.

Here's some geologists sampling the steam vents on Baker

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Imgs/Jpg/Baker/Images/Baker81_gas_sampling_fumarole_mount_baker_1981_med.jpg

and here's the volcano as I see it.

And here's the entrance to Koko Crater Botanical Garden... when I was there it was a wild area with a path... now its gone hollywood!

http://sparks-mexico.com/hawaii/koko/koko1%20(2).JPG

 

[turbo]

Pretty view of the mountain, baywax! I hope you're far enough away if it pops.

 

[baywax]

Pretty view of the mountain, baywax! I hope you're far enough away if it pops.

Thanks Turbo... it'll be the smog in the photo or a tsunami or terrorists or an NK nuke or smoking or beer or a truck before we're BAKED by Mt. Baker I have a feeling. At least... if you believe the news and the people in the news! Otherwise... I'll take the BAKE over any of them!

Actually we've got about 5 of those cones in the area. There's a famous garden that's parked in a cone left over from early eruptions by Baker. Its called Queen Elizabeth Gardens (named after the Queen who now resides in England, same one your DickTator was dissing near your place) Here it is...

http://www.aboutvancouver.org/img/DS_5950_10559.jpg

And Black Tusk is a chimney leftover from major eruptions around here... its up by Whistler where the 2010 Winter Olympics are going to be canceled due to no snow...

http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/urbgeo/vanrock/images/garibaldi_5.jpg

And of course we've got Mt. Rainier (which was one of my favorite beer next to Olympia Beer). That one will blow before Baker.

And here's a map of all the cones in the Pacific NW (everyone is encouraged to ski on these mothers!)

 

[baywax]

Speaking of plants and gardens...

Ever grow one of these Gunera?

http://members.shaw.ca/newgardener3/Weskwick%20gunnera%201%20SGE%20(908%20x%20600).jpg

They're also called elephant plants. There are a few tricks to keeping them healthy and BIG! My methods are adaptations to the climate we have here which is... something Georgia would like to have at this time... RAIN!

 

[turbo]

Wow! Those leaves are BIG! We don't get enough temperate weather to grow anything like that. Though if the climate keeps warming up here, we could be looking at winters with little snow and lots of mud.

 

[Astronuc]

So, I guess this means I didn't win... damn.

Heck, I'm not even in the contest. I'm just a test dummy.

Here's some geologists sampling the steam vents on Baker

Cool! or rather - Hot! I presume that's yellow deposit is sulphur. Sooo there must be hydrogen sulphide or sulfated around that place?

Great! All we need is grizzly-bear type dart gun to take you down so we can toss you in. BTW, Molson Golden is OK, but if you can bring Beck's, I'll try to convince the tossers not to let you bounce of rock outcroppings on the way in.

How thoughtful of you.

Actually volcanos don't find me very tasty.

I'll do better than Molson Golden or Beck's.


Anyway, speaking of gardening - again - what's the best place to grow hops. I just heard a local (regional) radio program with three local brewers, and they talked about a shortage of hops in the US. The prices have gone from $2-3/lb, to $5-6/lb, up to in some cases $34/lb (Cascade hops)! Apparently various small breweries and micro-breweries are in jeopardy. The hops shortage may last for some time. AND - the price of barley (for malt) has increased.

Farmers are less likely to grow barley because of the uncertainty about the quality, which has to be just right for malting (better price) or the barley becomes feed. Farmers get more money to grow corn, because the US government in its infinited stupidity is subsidizing corn and promoting ethanol production, which of course is increasing the cost of the food supply in the US.

Anyway, I want to look into growing barley and hops, as well as various berries and hot peppers.

Turbo, what is the hops potential up your way.

 

[turbo]

Turbo, what is the hops potential up your way.

Very good! If you trudge around to old farm-steads, you will find hops. My neighbor years back had hops that were climbing through his lilacs alongside his barn. Here is a web-page by a guy who seems familiar with this situation.

http://byo.com/feature/116.html

In New England, where there is a short growing season (sometimes only 50 days), people have had success with almost every available variety, but especially with those that are normally fast-growing and productive such as Cascade, Nugget, Chinook, and Willamette.

In some places such as New England, lucky homebrewers found old-growth hops (often gone feral) around abandoned house sites, in old barnyards, and in similar forgotten areas.

 

[baywax]

Heck, I'm not even in the contest. I'm just a test dummy.

Cool! or rather - Hot! I presume that's yellow deposit is sulphur. Sooo there must be hydrogen sulphide or sulfated around that place?

How thoughtful of you.

Actually volcanos don't find me very tasty.

I'll do better than Molson Golden or Beck's.


Anyway, speaking of gardening - again - what's the best place to grow hops. I just heard a local (regional) radio program with three local brewers, and they talked about a shortage of hops in the US. The prices have gone from $2-3/lb, to $5-6/lb, up to in some cases $34/lb (Cascade hops)! Apparently various small breweries and micro-breweries are in jeopardy. The hops shortage may last for some time. AND - the price of barley (for malt) has increased.

Farmers are less likely to grow barley because of the uncertainty about the quality, which has to be just right for malting (better price) or the barley becomes feed. Farmers get more money to grow corn, because the US government in its infinited stupidity is subsidizing corn and promoting ethanol production, which of course is increasing the cost of the food supply in the US.

Anyway, I want to look into growing barley and hops, as well as various berries and hot peppers.

Turbo, what is the hops potential up your way.

Cool Astronuc. There's hops here. There used to be more. Now its looking more and more like one monotonous corn field. However, we've been making our Ethanol from Cannola plants here. I thinks its been the last 30 years that we've had 10 percent Ethanol in Husky and Mohawk gasolines. Its an nice alternative and you pass "Air Care" much easier with it. For berries we've got them all. There are cranberry fields forever. At harvest you flood the field (its right beside a large river) and pick the dislodged berries off the top of the water. Its a cool sight since you have all these people who've immigrated here from India in their super bright saris and stuff and they're wading around in these bright red berry ponds the size of 8 football fields.

 

[Astronuc]

Very good! If you trudge around to old farm-steads, you will find hops. My neighbor years back had hops that were climbing through his lilacs alongside his barn. Here is a web-page by a guy who seems familiar with this situation.

You and your neighbors could be sitting on a gold mine. It bears investigation!

 

[turbo]

You and your neighbors could be sitting on a gold mine. It bears investigation!

Well, the vagrant vines that climb around here and there are not likely to provide a lot of income, though if you want to come up to the K-valley and buy a hillside sector, I'll find a nice one for you so you can plant a few dozen acres with Cascade and sit back. I'll round up a few crocks and we can get into regular small-scale production while you provide high-quality hops to the designer micro-breweries.

 

[Astronuc]

Well, the vagrant vines that climb around here and there are not likely to provide a lot of income, though if you want to come up to the K-valley and buy a hillside sector, I'll find a nice one for you so you can plant a few dozen acres with Cascade and sit back. I'll round up a few crocks and we can get into regular small-scale production while you provide high-quality hops to the designer micro-breweries.

Well - I'm kinda thinking along those lines.

What's an acre cost up that way?

I'm thinking about calling those breweries, because some people are getting quite desparate. There's a market there. And the shortage is going to be for some time.

 

[turbo]

I'm thinking that since we we got this place for less than 90K with a nice little house and about 8-9 acres, you ought to be able to do well.

 

[Astronuc]

I seem to remember about 40 acres or so just south of your place.

I'll give you a buzz this weekend.

 

[Astronuc]

Geeks in the Garden!

This is really cool!

http://www.kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/274

The aim of the Landprint project is to reproduce subtle patterns and photos by combining various species of plants with programmed robotics.

Plants and flowers that spawn seem to make continuous patterns with their various colours and shades seen from a distance. With the use of programmed robotics for the planting and cutting of plants, we can manipulate the evolving patterns, to render photo-like, delicate images.

It helps to have a high-tech lawnmower.

 

[Math Jeans]

As long as this thread has been bumped, I might mention that I planted some savannah red habaneros today.

 

[Art]

Well - I'm kinda thinking along those lines.

What's an acre cost up that way?

I'm thinking about calling those breweries, because some people are getting quite desparate. There's a market there. And the shortage is going to be for some time.

I'd be thinking of moving directly into vertical integration and then I could quickly become my own best customer

 

[turbo]

There are opportunities to grow some high-value crops here. Our tendency toward warm winters and regular summers could leverage some crops into real money-makers!

 

[Astronuc]

There are opportunities to grow some high-value crops here. Our tendency toward warm winters and regular summers could leverage some crops into real money-makers!

I'm thinking along those lines. Thanks for the info.

 

[turbo]

If you are willing to bet on the continuing warming of Maine's winters, our cheap land prices make this a nice place to start a vineyard, a hops plantation, or even a New England nexus for hot chilies. The ones in the stores around here stink!

 

[baywax]

If you are willing to bet on the continuing warming of Maine's winters, our cheap land prices make this a nice place to start a vineyard, a hops plantation, or even a New England nexus for hot chilies. The ones in the stores around here stink!

Speaking of stink, garlic is a good crop. Less land required, high yield and fair prices. People almost use as much garlic as they do beer. Did I say that!?

I've seen companies selling their own grown excellent garlic in the same region as the vineyards of BC. Those land prices are jumping by about 6 percent a year or more so, no great deal in the making.

 

[turbo]

Speaking of stink, garlic is a good crop. Less land required, high yield and fair prices. People almost use as much garlic as they do beer. Did I say that!?

I've seen companies selling their own grown excellent garlic in the same region as the vineyards of BC. Those land prices are jumping by about 6 percent a year or more so, no great deal in the making.

I just planted my garlic last weekend. Had to chop frozen soil to get it in the ground. I've got a 35+ foot double-row in a raised bed - about 1/3 of it in German garlic and 2/3 of it in Russian garlic. The German garlic yields larger bulbs, but with only 4 cloves per bulb, it will take me longer to propagate into a larger crop. Assuming the garlic comes in well, we'll probably eat and can with mostly Russian garlic next summer and save most of the German so I can plant a wide double-row of each variety next winter.

 

[baywax]

I just planted my garlic last weekend. Had to chop frozen soil to get it in the ground. I've got a 35+ foot double-row in a raised bed - about 1/3 of it in German garlic and 2/3 of it in Russian garlic. The German garlic yields larger bulbs, but with only 4 cloves per bulb, it will take me longer to propagate into a larger crop. Assuming the garlic comes in well, we'll probably eat and can with mostly Russian garlic next summer and save most of the German so I can plant a wide double-row of each variety next winter.

Highly commendable of you to be doing this. I've grown and eaten the elephant garlic from China and I don't like it. It seems similar to the German garlic in that it has large cloves but they're watered down, and the pungent punch is missing. The best garlic I've found was out of the Okanagan, growing in soil that can increase in value by 5% per month in selected areas and has a snow white husk (where the elephant variety has a purplish hue)These cloves are compact and dense with a knock out flavour and an effective medicinal quality for the blood. This garlic is farmed by the Galaxy Garlic Farm near Summerland, BC.

 

[turbo]

Yeah, ditto on elephant garlic. No character at all. The German and Russian have nice flavors. It will be a challenge to save (or most of) the German for planting, but I've got to do it. My neighbor has been supplying me with garlic (including the planting stock), and I've been supplying him with chili relish, hot salsa, etc. In a couple of years, I should have a big enough crop to be self-sufficient and still have some extra for friends.

 

[baywax]

Yeah, ditto on elephant garlic. No character at all. The German and Russian have nice flavors. It will be a challenge to save (or most of) the German for planting, but I've got to do it. My neighbor has been supplying me with garlic (including the planting stock), and I've been supplying him with chili relish, hot salsa, etc. In a couple of years, I should have a big enough crop to be self-sufficient and still have some extra for friends.

Like, self sufficient in terms of garlic or just the whole kit and kaboodle?

Ever grown winter carrots? They get a bit hoary but they're actually very satisfying. Its especially cool digging them up in the middle of winter when there's little else for food. Really kind of a feeling of "self sufficiency" when you don't have to rely on California for carrots in winter.

 

[turbo]

Like, self sufficient in terms of garlic or just the whole kit and kaboodle?

Ever grown winter carrots? They get a bit hoary but they're actually very satisfying. Its especially cool digging them up in the middle of winter when there's little else for food. Really kind of a feeling of "self sufficiency" when you don't have to rely on California for carrots in winter.

We're actually self-sufficient to a great degree already. There are about 40 buttercup squash and a few pie pumpkins in the cold cellar, along with probably 150# of carrots, and there is a 1/2 row of parsnips in the ground to be dug up as needed, though we'll probably leave them in the ground until the spring thaw - they get a lot better flavor that way. We've also got two large chest freezers full of vegetables from our garden, fruits, and wild berries and fiddleheads. We buy potatoes and onions, because they are cheap staples and we use so many of them that growing space and storage become issues. We have several cupboards crammed full of salsas, chili relishes, pickles, etc. I did a LOT of canning last summer, to the extent that our neighbor gave us three additional cases of canning jars to go with our others, and my wife still had to go out and buy two more cases of them. In addition, we still have apples from our apple trees and over-flow from my father's apple tree. Every morning, my wife juices carrots, apples, berries, etc to take for lunch.

We're not entirely self-sufficient, but if we were willing to drop a few items from our diet, we could eat for a LONG time without a trip to the store. Months, at least.

Edit: All this talk of food got me thinking about a snack, so I opened a jar of pickled jalapenos with dill and garlic. I made them months ago, but we have so many other jars of pickles and chili relishes open already that I have not tried them until now. Excellent! They have such a wonderful flavor that if I start running low on habanero relish, I will start using these on sandwiches and hot dogs instead.

 

[baywax]

We're actually self-sufficient to a great degree already. There are about 40 buttercup squash a a few pie pumpkins in the cold cellar, along with probably 150# of carrots, and there is a 1/2 row of parsnips in the ground to be dug up as needed, though we'll probably leave them in the ground until the spring thaw - they get a lot better flavor that way. We've also got two large chest freezers full of vegetables from our garden, fruits, and wild berries and fiddleheads. We buy potatoes and onions, because they are cheap staples and we use so many of them that growing space and storage become issues. We have several cupboards crammed full of salsas, chili relishes, pickles, etc. I did a LOT of canning last summer, to the extent that our neighbor gave us three additional cases of canning jars to go with our others, and my wife still had to go out and buy two more cases of them. In addition, we still have apples from our apple trees and over-flow from my father's apple tree. Every morning, my wife juices carrots, apples, berries, etc to take for lunch.

We're not entirely self-sufficient, but if we were willing to drop a few items from our diet, we could eat for a LONG time without a trip to the store. Months, at least.

Edit: All this talk of food got me thinking about a snack, so I opened a jar of pickled jalapenos with dill and garlic. I made them months ago, but we have so many other jars of pickles and chili relishes open already that I have not tried them until now. Excellent! They have such a wonderful flavor that if I start running low on habanero relish, I will start using these on sandwiches and hot dogs instead.

Now I'm hungry too!

Very cool about the preserves and the cold storage veggies. I like Astronuc's hop farm idea. I don't know about you guys but the kind of beer I like to drink is pretty costly... unless you go to my favorite Irish Pub. Its a little better priced than most. Bono and his U2 mates were there while they rehearsed their last world tour. We had the Police here doing their kick off for their tour as well, but Sting and those guys are into foo foo chique stuff rather than Kilkenny, Guiness etc...

I once had so many raspberries I made frozen juice. But it kind of pains me to do so because I so enjoy a raspberry in the raw!

Here's a strawberry patch architecture you might want to try. Its basically a pyramid of soil with cascading boards holding the soil up. The plants get equal light and produce ginormous sized fruit. The draw back is that the soil tends to fall after a few years of rain, freezing etc... its those damn physicists I'm sure of it.

 

[turbo]

I once had so many raspberries I made frozen juice. But it kind of pains me to do so because I so enjoy a raspberry in the raw!

You've got to take them as they come. Last summer was an off-year for wild blackberries so we ate them as they were picked. We've still got some frozen from the previous year, though. That was a bumper crop, and for a couple of months, I could go picking every other day and come back with at least a gallon of berries. We had about 20 gallons in the freezer at the end of the season. They go great in pancakes!

 

[baywax]

You've got to take them as they come. Last summer was an off-year for wild blackberries so we ate them as they were picked. We've still got some frozen from the previous year, though. That was a bumper crop, and for a couple of months, I could go picking every other day and come back with at least a gallon of berries. We had about 20 gallons in the freezer at the end of the season. They go great in pancakes!

Which reminds me... syrup! Summerland has a company that makes these syrups from the many berries they grow there. Every kind of berry imaginable. You can get a six pack of gooseberry, blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, strawberry, boysenberry syrups for around 34 cdn bucks. Thats around 150 bucks usd! (just kidding)

So that is an industry to look at. You'd have to get people used to the idea of berry syrups as opposed to good old maple syrup which really only does well, growing wise, out your way on this huge continent of ours.

I remember this ranch I fenced as a neighbourly deed once. They were close to self-sufficient. The trouble is that it doesn't matter how well you garden your garden or husband your goats, you've got to maintain the human relationship thing and you've got to withstand a lot of pressure from the lure of big bucks for your land.

(edit) I had about 8 walnut trees on my land and this guy told me about a guy who planted around 2000 walnut trees on his. He did this when he was around 25. By the time he was 70 he chopped them all down and made over 500,000 dollars selling the wood which is fairly coveted by cabinet and furniture makers. Think about that one!

 

[turbo]

Well, I don't think walnut trees would stand our climate, but I've got a thing for fruit trees and have recently planted apricot, peach, pear, and plum trees with two varieties of cherry and three varieties of apple, in addition to the other 4 apple trees on the side lawns and old trees that I leave wild to feed the critters. I won't get any valuable lumber, but hopefully the fruit (and the berries on the ornamentals I planted) will keep the birds and us happy.

 

[Astronuc]

We have walnut trees in our area, and we get hard freezes, and sometimes the temp gets down to -20°F (-28.9°C), or a little less.

I think parts of BC and ME have similar climates.